


Rebirth

by yaniehime



Series: At First Sight [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fantasy, Gen, M/M, My First Fanfic, My First Work in This Fandom, One Shot, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Prologue, Series, Unbeta'd, Xianxia-ish story, brief major character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-08-30 09:55:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8528623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yaniehime/pseuds/yaniehime
Summary: Steve Rogers was only seventeen years old, but he doubted if he would ever live to see his eighteenth birthday.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, everyone! This is my very first fic ever. I am a fan of the Stucky fandom for a long while now. (Yes, the main pairing in this series is Steve/Bucky. Bucky will show up on the next fic.) I feel like my writing skills are a little bit rusty, so I wanted to practice by writing fanfiction. I hope you can give me feedback. Message me or post a comment if you see any mistakes or typo.
> 
> Rebirth is the first of a series of stories set in the At First Sight 'verse. It is an alternate universe fantasy series that I want to explore and share with you.
> 
> Please note that I do not have a set schedule. I will write and post as soon as I can.

_2006_

Steve Rogers was only seventeen years old, but he doubted if he would ever live to see his eighteenth birthday.

He was lying on a hospital bed with a body full of wounds and bruises. His right eye was swollen, and there was a large bruise on his right cheekbone. His collar bone was cracked and one of his arms was on a sling. His whole body ached. He had been in a car accident. He was walking on the side of the road, minding his own business, when a car ran straight at him. He had no chance to dodge and was hit and flung against a brick wall.

But it was not his bruised and battered body that would cause his death.

No, Steve Rogers was a dying, small, skinny teenager who barely reached five feet and two inches and was ninety pounds soaking wet who was immunocompromised. He was dying because of his weak body. His hair—the color of hay—was matted on his skull with sweat. The accident was only a preview of his suffering. It was as if the sickness in his body was only waiting for an opening before starting to break down his mortal frame.

Steve had a weak body that was already breaking down and was trying to kill him. He was dying. But even though his body was weak, his mind and spirit were not.

No, Steve did not want to die. His blue eyes were filled with determination. He was mustering all of his will power just to stay afloat. He nearly flat lined twice, but he still managed to hang by a proverbial thread.

The sound of the beeping of machines and Steve’s labored breathing through the respirator were the only sounds that filled his hospital room. He could not do without the respirator anymore. His lungs had already given out.

The doctors and the nurses were not positive of his condition. He would sometimes get pitying looks from the nurses and attendants. It was as if he was fighting a losing battle and everybody knew it. But he still refused to give in.

Steve wondered for how long he could stay in the hospital before he died or before his money and health insurance ran out.

He was an orphan. His parents had died when he was little. He had no relatives and only had a handful of friends. Some of his friends had been by. He knew that a few of them were outside of his hospital room. But visiting hours had already ended. And the doctors had already mentioned the danger of getting an infection from any of his visitors. So he had not seen his friends since the accident. And they were only allowed to see him through the glass window.

Steve just woke up from a fitful sleep a few minutes ago. He wanted a higher dose of pain medication but it would do him no good. No amount of pain killer would stop his body from betraying him.

The heart monitor on one side of his bed registered that his heart had skipped a beat when he realized that a woman was standing beside his bed. She was standing on the opposite side of where the machines were with her back against the room’s glass window.

The shutters were down on the glass window but he could still see slivers of light, and the woman’s body was cast in shadow. He could only vaguely see her frame based on her silhouette.

He guessed that the woman was taller than him by a good six inches. She had a slender build and her hair was dark and long. From her silhouette, her hair looked like flowing, dark silk. He could not clearly see her face but he could sense that she was looking at him. He could feel her intent flowing towards him in waves.

Steve should feel panicked and alarmed because a stranger had suddenly appeared in his hospital room without him even hearing the door open or close. He felt danger emanating from the slender woman, but he somehow still did not feel threatened. He was dying anyway. Anything that she did to him would not matter in the long run. Maybe she was an angel of death who will give him mercy with a swift death. Maybe she came to his room to free him of his suffering.

He mentally shook himself. No, he was not going to go willingly. He did not want to die. Even if he was tied to the bed, he would still fight her off if she wanted to harm him.

The woman stepped closer to his bed and stopped until she was able to lean over him. In the darkened room, Steve still saw her eyes sparkle like polished emeralds. He stared in wonder and awe, captivated with the way her unwavering eyes studied his face.

There was a gentle smile on her lips now. Steve wondered why he even thought that she was going to hurt him when her face was as open and pure as untarnished snow. Her smile felt like a gentle breeze caressed his whole body, soothing his aches and pains.

He was so entranced and relaxed by her smile that he did not realize that she was speaking to him. He blinked a few times before her words registered in his brain.

“Do you want to be reborn, Steven?” the green-eyed woman had asked him. It took him a few seconds before he could register her question. “Do you want to live? Do you want to experience life?” she asked again.

_Yes! Yes, I do!_

Steve wanted to say yes. He wanted to tell the woman that it was the only thing that he wanted. It was the only thing that he had ever wanted in his life. Yes, he wanted to live. He wanted to chance to live a normal life. It was his dearest wish, something that would never come true. But he still wanted to tell to tell her yes.

He wanted to say yes, but the respirator was making it difficult for him to speak. The tube was directly inserted in his mouth and through his throat to help him breath. So there was no way for him to answer her questions.

But the woman seemed to have gotten his answer as she continued looking deep into his blue eyes. She raised a hand to smooth the matted hair on his forehead. She removed her hand from his forehead and he immediately missed her gentle touch. She gave him another gentle smile and laid her a palm on top of his chest, directly on top of his weakly beating heart. They both looked at each other for a while, both listening to Steve’s weak heart and his labored breathing.

Steve felt calmed. He felt as if he was being rocked into a gentle sleep. His whole being was now focused on the woman’s palm that was on his chest. Her hand was warm and soothing. It almost felt like she was grounding him to the here and now, stopping his body from moving even further to oblivion.

He might have been hallucinating, but he saw a sliver of a golden thread emerge from the center of the woman’s forehead. The golden thread moved slowly as if propelled by gentle, invisible currents. He watched wide-eyed as the golden thread went directly towards his forehead.

He had no time or even the energy to move away. He closed his eyes, trying to brace for the inevitable pain in his forehead. But after a few seconds, he felt nothing. So, he opened his eyes and saw the woman still smiling gently at him.

_What? What happened?_ He wanted to ask her but could not.

Steve wondered if he was really hallucinating due to the pain. Maybe he needed to call for help now. No, if the doctors knew that he was also losing his mind aside from losing his life, things would only get harder for him.

“I will come back for you when you die. Before your soul leaves your body, I will come for you.” She raised her hand from his chest and caressed his cheek with the back of her fingers. “And you will be reborn as my knight.” She leaned even closer and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead.

Her words and her gentle touch seemed to put Steve in a sleepy trance. His eyelids grew heavy and a restful sleep finally took hold of him.

 

++++++++++

 

Steve Rogers was only seventeen years old, and he was dying. There was no doubt of that fact.

No matter how hard he tried to fight the shadow of Death that was looming over his bed, he could not avoid its firm hold on his throat. His whole body was hurting. The machines beside his bed were beeping warning sounds.

The doctors and the nurses surrounded him as they tried to help him. But his heart was finally giving out, almost stuttering its final beats. His liver had already failed. His death was starting from within.

Steve closed his eyes, trying to remove his thoughts from the fact that he was dying, that his body was committing its final act of betrayal.

The memories of the dream that he had two nights ago came back to the forefront of his pain-filled mind. He remembered the green-eyed woman’s voice, her gentle touch, and her warmth. He tried to recall the words that she had told him before his dream faded away, but he could not seem to remember. All her could see in his pain-addled brain was that sliver of golden thread that came out of the woman’s forehead. He wondered why he thought about it now out of all the things that he could think about during the last moments of his life.

It was supposed to be that his short life should flash before his eyes. But his stubbornness was stopping those thoughts. During his final struggle with Death, he was still stubborn enough to not go without a fight.

Steve Rogers might be dying, but he was not going down that easy.

 

++++++++++

 

A hush came over inside of the hospital room. The doctors and the nurses stood still for a few seconds, staring at the unmoving skinny body of Steve Rogers. The heart monitor beside his bed was beeping a steady sound of a flat line.

“Time of death?” Dr. Abraham Erskine, Steve’s main physician, asked in a sad and resigned voice to the room at large. He had a head full of white hair and circular, wire-rimmed glasses perched on top of his nose. His eyes were normally kind but now they showed with great sorrow.

Dr. Erskine tried so hard to help Steven. But no amount of help was enough. They even tried experimental drugs and clinical trials. But there was no stopping poor Steven’s body from failing. The ill-fortune of the car accident only ushered the inevitable for the poor boy. With Steven’s weak body, his life expectancy was already very short, the accident only made it infinitely faster.

One of the nurses could respond. “7:42 PM.”

The old doctor nodded to no one in particular. He gave poor Steven one last look before exiting the room. It was not his first time to lose a patient, he had learned to accept that he could not save everyone. But the feeling of loss and failure was still there in the background. No matter how much he tried, he still felt sad with the loss of such a young life like Steven’s.

After the doctor left, it did not take long before Steve Roger’s body was carted off to the hospital’s morgue where it will wait until the proper funeral arrangements were made.

 

++++++++++

 

Steve woke up from a horrible nightmare with a loud gasp. He dreamed that he was dying. In fact, he woke up right after the moment he died. He sat up on the bed, panting as his heart beat madly. He took in great gulps of air as if he had not breathed in air on his own for a long time.

And that was when Steve froze for a moment, finally realizing where he was. After a beat, he jumped out of the soft bed, wildly looking at the simple and dark wooden furnishings of the small room. On one side of the room was a large window that showed him a green bamboo forest.

He gulped down the panic that was starting to rise from his chest. He felt strange, realizing that for the first time in his entire life, he felt that he could breathe easier and that his heart was beating steadier than it did before.

There was no one else with him in the room. From outside the window, he could only see the gentle swaying of the tall bamboo against the wind. He could also hear the happy chirping of birds although he could not see where they were.

Steve found the door. He rushed to it and turned the knob, thankful to find that it was unlocked. He opened the door and went outside of the room.

He gasped when he saw a vast courtyard in front of him. It appeared that his room was located on one side of the large, square inner courtyard of an Eastern style manor. The place was too large to even be a house. It reminded him of the estate of kings and emperors from the books that he had read.

Inside the courtyard was a Zen garden of sand and rocks. To one side there was an exquisitely-designed pagoda beside a small pond filled with blooming lotuses. The pagoda was almost seemed like it was made of pure, pale jade. He almost rubbed at his eyes when he thought that he saw the pagoda glow from within. There were trees and flowers everywhere in the courtyard as far as he could see.

He grew wary after finding himself in a strange place. He remembered now that his nightmare was not really a nightmare. In fact, he was sure that he was dying in a hospital in New York the last time that he closed his eyes. But now, he was somewhere he did not know. He could be anywhere. Any rich person could afford to have an opulent Eastern estate built anywhere he or she wanted.

His eyes scanned his surroundings further and realized that there was someone sitting inside the pagoda. There was a dark-haired woman who was sitting inside the pagoda and was reading a book. He could not help the urge to go to the woman. He found that he had no choice in the matter. If he wanted to know where he was or how in the world he turned up in this place instead of being in the hospital, he needed to talk to her.

Steve knew that he had been dying the last time that he closed his eyes. So it was a mystery as to why he now felt like nothing was wrong with his body. It was as if he could run a mile and not feel like he could vomit his lungs the next second. So what was happening now? He definitely needed to know.

It was not that he wasn't thankful of the fact that he was not dying. Not dying was a good sign. But still, it he grew up as a stubborn punk who never ran away from anything. That even caused many beatings that he had received in the past. But that was besides the matter at hand. He walked to the pagoda to talk to the woman.

He could not explain it, but Steve realized that he knew the woman. He was momentarily stunned when the image of the woman who came to visit him in the hospital during a dream appeared in his mind. He felt like the woman in his dream was the same woman that was now sitting inside the pagoda. He could recognize her long, silk-like hair that cascaded down her back. But how could that be? How can he dream of someone he had never met? Everything was so strange for him at the moment.

When he was finally inside the pagoda, his eyes widened in surprise at confirming that it was really the woman in his dream. He stood motionless in front of the woman with his mouth hanging open.

The woman gave him a warm smile. She gestured for Steve to take the chair that was opposite hers in front of the jade-like table. Even the furniture inside the pagoda seemed like it was made of jade. Steve felt like a fish that was suddenly pulled out of the water because of the woman’s voice. Her actions only registered in his mind after a few seconds. He wordlessly followed and took a seat on a chair from the woman’s opposite side of the table. The chair was made of pale and shiny stone but it felt comfortable to sit on.

“You are finally awake, Steven. It’s good of you to join me here. Did you sleep well? Would you like some tea?” the woman said.

There was a tea set of exquisite china in the middle of the table. He also noticed for the first time that there were small plates that contained snacks that he could not recognize. It was clear that nothing around him looked Westernized. It was like he had been transported into a beautiful, Eastern world.

The woman smiled at him and offered him a cup of tea. They drank in silence for a while as Steve tried to wrap his mind around his situation.

He was feeling well. In fact, he was feeling like he had been reborn. His body, his bones, his heart, and even his lungs felt healthy. He should feel apprehensive, as if it was a calm before the storm, but the worst had already happened to him. He had already…

Steve put down his teacup and looked straight into the woman’s emerald green eyes. “I died,” he said.

The question in his voice did not go unnoticed. The woman even gave him a nod in response. Her eyes studied his face.

“And the better you are for it,” she said. She also laid down her teacup.

So it was true that he died. But then, how was he feeling well and very much alive now? His mind was filled with questions and there was only one person who could give him the answers that he needed. He opened his mouth to speak but the woman spoke first.

“I know you have questions. I know you are confused. That’s understandable. But first, I would like for you to listen. And maybe after you will find that you no longer need to ask.”

The green-eyed woman looked him directly in the eyes and waited for his response. Steve gulped and nodded his head. He may be a stubborn person, but he understood the sincerity in the woman’s eyes that it made him stop himself from asking questions and wait after the woman had said her piece. That made the woman smile, but her smile was somewhat sad and apologetic.

“Before I begin, let me introduce myself to you. I am called Queen. I have been called that name for as long as I can remember. I do not have other names. It is my first and my last. I am not royalty, but I am a ruler. This land that we stand on is my domain. From the tips of Canada to the end of Mexico, I rule silently in the shadows. But I am not alone. I am not the only ruler. There are other rulers who have their own domains in this world. In fact, the world is a giant pie that is divided into several slices. To determine our domain, we rulers are required to join a competition every thirty years. And that is where you come in, Steven.

“At the twentieth year of each cycle, rulers need to select someone to act as their representatives in the competition. That person needs to be untrained and unaware of the Underworld. We are to start afresh each and every time, building up our participant’s strength and power to ensure victory. The day I found you marked the twentieth year of the current cycle. I was looking for someone with a pure heart, someone who was at the end of their life so that I can give them a new one. Maybe a better life, but a life that was infinitely more dangerous. I need a warrior, a knight, a fighter. And I found these qualities in you, Steven. You were like a shining beacon that was calling out to me in the dark. I could not think of anyone else more deserving of rebirth that you.

“Should you accept, I will personally oversee your training. Of course, I am giving you a choice. You may be the most perfect candidate, but it does not mean that I will force you to join a competition that will most likely kill you. All I am asking is for you to believe in me. Trust me. Lay down your life for me. Serve me. I know that I am asking for a lot. I am asking for everything. But know that I also care about you. And even if you decline, you can still walk away with another chance at a better life than your last. I gave you a body that is exactly the same as your last but healthier and stronger. You can live through old age and not worry about sickness or diseases.

“Accept and I shall be your ruler. Decline and I promise to take you back to New York.”

The woman did not look away from him as she spoke. When she finally finished, she took a sip of her tea and waited for Steve to digest everything that she just said.

Steve realized that the green-eyed woman, that Queen’s words did indeed answer most of his questions.

Why choose him? He was surely dying when he thought he had dreamed her. He was definitely a fighter. He never liked bullies, so he was always in a scrap or two just to fight off bullies from the streets. He’d join the army if he could. It had been his childhood dream to be a soldier and serve his country, but his body held him back.

Queen spoke of the possibility of him having a chance at a normal life. Now that he was definitely healthier with no chance of ever getting sick again, if her words were to be believed, then that meant that he can now fight the good fight. He can now enlist for the army and help his country.

But Steve was not an ungrateful kind of guy. If he thought about it, it was Queen who gave him his body. Whatever that meant. He now owned his new lease at life to her. He was no fool. He knew that as easily as she could give him a new life, he knew that she could easily take it away. For all the mystery surrounding Queen, there was no doubt that she was very powerful. Not even her open and pure countenance could hide the strength she was keeping within her.

“When you said you gave me a body that is exactly the same...” Queen looked at him with the tips of her lips quirking upwards. “Is this permanent? Or do you think I can manage to grow some muscle to be your muscle in a fight?”

Queen and Steve looked at each other, and after a beat, they both laughed. The sound of Queen’s laughter was like the pleasant ringing of sibilant bells. He could not explain how he knew, but the sensed that she did not laugh as often as the world deserved to hear that wonderful sound. He felt a lightness in his chest that made him smile wider at her.

“Thank you, Steven. For this, I am truly grateful.” She gave him the most beautiful of smiles. She seemed to be glowing in the afternoon sun.

It was very difficult to not appreciate her beauty, but Steve also found that all he felt when he looked at her was peace. He felt like he had discovered true peace for the first time in his life.

“Please, just call me Steve.” He felt heat on his cheeks and the tips of his ears when she gave him a fond look.

“Steve, there are so many things I have yet to teach you. But before that,” She looked at him from top to bottom as if she could still see the part of his body that was under the table, “let me help you make a body that deserves the greatness of your heart.”

Queen took his hands into hers from across the table and he felt a soothing warmth enter his body through her palms. He remembered the warm and soothing hand of his mother when he was little from Queen’s actions. She looked at him like how a mother lovingly looked at her own child. It had been a long time since he felt cared for like this. It nearly brought him to tears.

He may still have things he wanted to clarify with her, details that he wanted to know more about. But all of that seemed unimportant now.

At that very moment, Steve Rogers vowed that he would fight the good fight if it meant fighting for her sake.


End file.
